Berners-Lee calls for Web 2.0 calm — Analysis Five years after the first internet bubble burst, we're now witnessing the backlash against Web 2.0 and a plethora of me-too business plans, marketing pitches and analyst reports exploiting the nebulous phrase.

MySpace driving more retail traffic than MSN search — New Hitwise findings indicate that MySpace sent more US traffic to online retail sites last week than MSN search, the third largest search engine on the web. That's big news, as it's tangible evidence that youth oriented online social networking …

Firefox 2.0 beta 2 boasts enhanced look, features — Mozilla released Beta 2 of its upcoming Firefox 2 browser for developer review Aug. 31, emphasizing that it is being made available for testing purposes only. The release contains a number of new features, as well as some enhancements to look and feel.

Reports: Apple to hold special event on September 12th — Based on reports from European Apple enthusiast websites and last night's YourMacLife radio broadcast, Apple is in the process of inviting members of the press to a special event for new products, to be held on September 12, 2006.

America's Most Wired Cities — With most of the U.S. technology industry focused on the East and West coasts, you'd think the best place to get online would be San Francisco, or perhaps New York City. But Atlanta tops Forbes.com's survey of America's most wired cities.

Cell phones won't keep your secrets — WASHINGTON (AP) — The married man's girlfriend sent a text message to his cell phone: His wife was getting suspicious. Perhaps they should cool it for a few days. — "So," she wrote, "I'll talk to u next week." — "You want a break from me?

Wal-Mart and Apple Battle for Turf — The retail behemoth isn't happy about the iPod maker's plans to offer movie downloads through iTunes. Has Wal-Mart met its match? — The guy from Bentonville, Ark., surely isn't on any of Hollywood's leading man lists.

21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic — A considerable portion of my consulting time has recently revolved around the optmization of corporate blogs (or the addition of blogs to revamped sites). As usual, I find a pattern emerging in the strategies that need attention and the pitfalls that must be avoided.

Microsoft's PR agency admits it doesn't "get" blogs! — My former boss at the Financial Times Paul Abrahams, heads up the sizeable UK office for Waggener Edstrom—Microsoft's long standing PR firm. Microsoft is WaggEd's largest client, and also it's largest cash cow, a very close relationship now well into its third decade.

Japanese robot adds wheels to iPod — TOKYO - The new Japanese robot Miuro turns an iPod music player into a dancing boombox-on-wheels. The 14-inch-long machine from ZMP Inc. blares music as it rolls and twists from room to room. The robot, which looks like a ball popping out of an egg, has a speaker system from Kenwood Corp.

Paris Hilton hacks voicemail using Asterisk — Celebrities Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan are in a well-known feud that now has entered one of my favorite realms, namely VoIP. According to an InfoWorld article, (which Asterisk VoIP News reminded me about), it is alleged that Paris Hilton used …

Social software is not a fad — Ryan Carson says he doesn't have time to use all those social apps like del.icio.us and Flickr and Digg, although he thinks they are cool, and Phil Edwards says that he likes them too but sees the phenomenon as appealing to a relatively small niche of Web geeks …

CrossOver Mac beta released: run Windows apps in OS X — Nope, this isn't a virtual machine a la Parallels or VMware for Mac, this is the real deal: CodeWeavers released the beta of CrossOver Mac, a WINE environment port to OS X that allows you to run Windows apps without actually running Windows.

Have I lost my "blog power"? — Anand M., in India, asks "has Scoble lost his blog power?" (I linked to him and he didn't get many visits). My read? If I ever did have blog power, it's gone now. Digg and TechMeme have all the power now. — I think Rageboy has the clue to what's going on here …

AIR FORCE WANTS SOFTWARE SPIES — What if you could send a computer program to do the job of a spy, or a bomber, or drone? It sounds like science fiction — and it'll probably stay that way, for a long, long time. But Air Force researchers think there's enough to the idea to start funding …

Basic Beta Briefing — Our current schedule for releasing the final version of Flash Player 9 for Linux is early 2007. Many readers have understandably requested a beta version before that time. — Yes, we do plan to release a beta version in advance of the final version.